


The Right Time

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 17:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12137673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Prompt: I have this headcanon that Mulder draws and sometimes when he wakes up at night or whenever, he sketches Scully when she's not aware and she's very embarrased about it but encourages him anyway because is therapeutic and really good at it.





	The Right Time

She’s waiting in the living room and she can hear him shuffling around in the office. There’s a creaky floorboard and his chair wheels need an oiling. She’s often wondered what he does in that office now. But since she left she feels she has no right to ask.  
She doesn’t talk about her work and he doesn’t tell her what he’s doing. They look at each other differently now. There’s a space between them filled with the unspoken, the regret, the guilt, the tattered remnants of a life they tried to stitch together.  
He comes out and she watches his movements. Slower now, less sure of himself. She wouldn’t dare equate her existence in his life with his measure of self-confidence but she has witnessed his silent shrinking over the past few years and she can’t stave off the pang of conscience.  
“To what do I owe this pleasure, doc?”  
“Do I need a reason to see you, Mulder?”  
He smirks. “I don’t know, Scully, do you?”  
She takes off her jacket and lays it over the back of the couch. It’s so warm in this house in the summer. “I wanted to let you know that I’m visiting my mother for a few days. I’ll be out of town. Just in case you wanted to reach me for any reason.”  
He turns his back and heads to the kitchen. “You’re taking your cellphone, I presume.”  
“I am,” she says, following him.  
“But you don’t really want me calling you at all hours,” he says, filling the jug.  
“That’s not what I’m saying, Mulder.” She hates it when he’s like this. But then again, when was ever not?  
“Make sure you give your mother my best.” He nods at her and offers her chamomile or peppermint tea.  
“Peppermint, please. My mother loves you, Mulder. You know that.”  
The kettle whistles and so does he. “At least somebody does.”  
She doesn’t stay long.  
When she returns she can’t get hold of him. It’s not like he hasn’t pulled this stunt before, though. He’s worse now than when they worked together. She sometimes wonders if the brilliance of his mind has shone so brightly that now it is burning the edges of reason and he is simply smouldering away, combusting slowly so that all that will remain of this extraordinary man will be ashes. His simmering resentment of anything outside of that little house, of anything that might be reasonably considered a life, has branded him.  
She doesn’t knock. She unlocks the door and walks into the darkness. There is a lingering aroma of cooking. Not stale, which calms her a little. She can hear the silence, the shadows creeping, the memories lurking in each corner. The time they made love on the kitchen bench, scattering cutlery and plates into the sink; the time they argued on the porch and he slammed the fly door so hard it fell off its hinges; the time they found a mouse in the cupboard and he wanted to keep it as a pet and she called him crazy and he dragged her outside in the rain and asked her to say it again.  
The door to his office is shut but she can hear scratching, sighing. As she stands poised to enter, he mumbles something and she can hear him screwing up paper.  
“Mulder?”  
He doesn’t reply.  
She taps lightly. “Mulder?”  
More mumbling and the ripping of paper.  
Pushing the door, it groans slightly and she inhales the familiarity, the strangeness, the dusty papery smell of Mulder’s office. White noise hums. A pale blue light from the printer is flashing. His phone buzzes across the desk and he swipes at it. He’s hunched over the desk, his arm working furiously. At his feet, a pile of papers, torn and screwed into balls.  
She waits a beat. “Mulder? It’s me.”  
The pencil drops to the desk and he swings around. He’s unshaven, his hair sticking up where he’s pushed his hand through it. He’s in the same clothes as he was wearing when she visited before.  
“What time is it?”  
She walks forward and looks at the desk. There are sketches of her face all over it. Some in colour, but most in black and white. She is younger, her hair longer and her eyes wider with innocence; she is older, wiser, her hair paler; she is smiling, she is frowning.  
He doesn’t stand up. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t draw. He just sits.  
“Mulder? These sketches. Is this what you do in here all day?”  
There are dozens and dozens.  
The one he is working on is missing her chin and her hair is just an outline. “I can’t get it right, Scully. I can never get it right.”  
“It’s okay,” she says, kneeling next to him. “It’s okay.”  
He takes the paper between his finger and thumb and lifts it. A tear drops on to it, where her own eyes stare out. How many times did she will him back to her with her own tears? When he does look up at her, his eyes are bloodshot, bruised underneath with fatigue. She covers his hand in hers and squeezes.  
“You’re too good for me, Scully. I can never capture how good you are.”  
“You need to rest, Mulder.”  
“I can’t rest until I get it right,” he says, his voice tight.  
She brings his hand to her mouth and presses a firm kiss there. “Maybe there is no right, Mulder. For all the time we’ve known each other, for all the years we’ve shared, maybe the only thing that stays the same is that we are always changing.”  
It takes a moment, but he chuffs out a laugh. “You always were the rational one, Scully.”  
“And you were always the passionate one. We made the best team, didn’t we?”  
“But you’re not here anymore.” He’s crying again, shaking.  
She feels her own tears welling. “I’ll always be here for you, Mulder.”  
“Come back to me.”  
A sigh escapes her lips and it’s not frustration or disappointment or regret. It tastes a little like hope, but she shakes her head anyway. “It’s not the right time, Mulder.”  
He smiles and something inside tells her that the right time might not be too far away.


End file.
